Quote Originally Posted by Miste View Post
That sticks and stones thing is utter nonsense is why. It is simply a placebo saying to try to help people cope with the negative emotional and mental affect verbal abuse can have.

Words have power. Words can never hurt is a lie we teach kids to try to tell themselves to bury the hurt and attempt to ignore it.

Not everyone has a strong mental state to cope with verbal abuse. I am not saying this about your situation btw just about that sticks and stones thing you mentioned.

It is a useless adage and just tries to sweep aside the problem of verbal abuse and the damage it can possibly cause to the victim of it.
Miste I don't think I've ever disagreed with you before, my brain doesn't know what to do. If it softens the blow at all know I made a character on Primal today so that I can someday run something with you!

Also I use 'you' in some of this post, it is not referring to you or any specific person, just the reader.

I strongly believe that equating (or even comparing) verbal abuse with actual physical harm is fundamentally wrong. There are certainly people out there in the world (and internet) who are so effected by words, spoken or written, that it can drive them to mental instability but the fault in that situation is still with the person who is letting someone else get to them that way.

Extreme cases of bullying aside there is just no comparison between someone harrassing you/calling you names/being 'a dick' online and walking up to you on the street and punching you in the face.

Do rude or insensitive comments sting sometimes? For sure. Part of growing up is learning to decide who you let close ebough to hurt you though and if your list includes forum users for a video game that you have never even met in real life then I think you need to evaluate your prioroties.

In the end I am very much behind the "sticks and stones" statement, especially when refering to annonymous online interactions. I am also proudly someone with "thicker skin" for this kind of thing and I don't think that automatically makes me a bad person. In my opinion telling someone they need to develop thicker skin is showing them compassion - better they hear that from me and give it some thought than prance through life unaware until they encounter someone actually meanspirited.